Reflections
by Alobear
Summary: Daniel thinks back over the most important moments in his relationship with Jack. (Spoilers for several episodes across Seasons Four through Seven)


Reflections

by

Alobear

Category: Slash - Jack/Daniel

Notes: Written for the 2016 J/D Ficathon from a prompt by Melime

XXXXX

The first time I realised how I felt about you, Jack, was when you were trapped on that submarine with the Replicators. Great timing, right? Wait until the most important person in the world is just about to die before being struck by the epiphany of my love. You really put me through the ringer that day, though. First of all, those helmet cameras are agonising - it's like playing a first person shooter video game without any controls. I was right there in the middle of the action, but I was also hundreds of miles away, unable to do anything but watch as two of my best friends faced death at the mercy of evil robot spiders.

I had Siler on one side of me and Davis on the other, but it didn't help. You were trapped on that sub, and you were asking me to give the order to blow it up. I wasn't even in the chain of command, but you asked me. You took your helmet off, turned the camera on yourself, looked me straight in the eye and ordered me to kill you. I have no idea why you chose me. When have I ever followed your orders, particularly when they're likely to result in your harm?

I didn't think I could do it, especially not since my mind was pretty much exploding right then with the realisation of how much I love you. But the Replicators were swarming, you were on the ground, helpless and terrified - I know you didn't show it, but I could see it in your eyes - and I knew you didn't want to die that way. So, I gave the order. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but I did it for you, hating you and loving you with every fibre of my being as I did.

Siler and Davis must have thought I'd gone completely insane when I suddenly cried out that you and Teal'c were okay. It was after the missile had actually hit the submarine, in the split second before the feed gave out, and I was the only one who saw the Asgard teleportation beam. The tremendous feeling of relief, after such an extended period of tension and despair, was so profound that I actually lost the power of coherent speech. I was reduced to random stuttering and arm-flailing, but Davis eventually figured it out and suddenly everyone was cheering.

I realised then that you were coming back, but everything had already changed in my mind. In that moment of terror for your loss, my brain had let me understand something, and now there was no way of putting that knowledge back in its box. We've shared so much over the years, you and I, that I felt sure you would see the change, like a neon sign blazing above my head. I had been about to watch you die, but you had actually been through a near-death experience, so maybe you would have had the same epiphany in that moment as me.

But, when you came down from the Asgard ship with Sam and Teal'c, you were just as flippant as ever, joking about how Sam had blown up the O'Neill, and engaging in all the back-slapping soldier stuff that goes on at a time like that. We didn't get a chance to talk right away, just the exchange of a quick grin, and then it was back to business as usual. For you, at least.

XXXXX

Maybe if you had given me something to work with, Jack, even a glimmer of hope that things could change, I might have made a different choice about ascension.

I remember it so clearly. Everyone was gathered round my bed, watching Jacob as he tried to heal me with the hand device. I wasn't paying much attention to physical sensations by that point, but I could feel it starting to work, deep within what was left of my body. I might even have rejoiced at the sudden flare of hope for physical recovery, if it hadn't been for you. Things had changed between us since that day on the submarine with the Replicators, but not in the way I wanted. For nearly two years, it felt like we'd been growing apart, rather than closer. I was trying to mould myself into a soldier to fit what I thought you wanted from me, but I couldn't give up on my ideals, my principles. We butted heads again and again over missions; you always wanted to go for the military option, the frontal assault, shoot first and ask questions later. You seemed less and less open to other possibilities, whether scientific ones posited by Sam, or diplomatic ones suggested by me. I began to feel more and more useless to the team, my expertise dismissed and my opinion discounted.

So, when Oma stood in the virtual Gate Room of my mind and offered me a choice, it seemed like an easy decision to make. You didn't seem to want me on your team any more, and here was an ascended being, asking me to join hers instead. How could I say no? But, despite your constant rejection, my feelings for you hadn't changed, so I decided to give you one last chance. I projected myself back into the room where I lay dying, and I brought you into my vision, hoping you would beg me to stay.

But you seemed completely unmoved by the whole situation. You barely reacted to the sudden transportation of your consciousness to another plane, and you seemed less than interested in what I had to say. When I told you of Oma's offer, and said I thought I could do more that way, I waited for you to argue with me, for you to tell me I could still do a lot with SG-1, that I was important to you, that you wanted me with you. But you just stood there, almost staring through me, as if I was already gone.

So I went.

XXXXX

But I couldn't stay away, Jack. Not when I saw what was going on.

And I saw everything. I can't tell you how many times the Others chastised me for taking too much interest in what was happening on the corporeal plane. But I looked down on you all whenever I could, keeping track of your adventures, watching as Jonas fought for your respect and earned his spot on the team in my place. It was hard seeing you all move on without me, harder than I thought it would be, but gradually I came to terms with my choice and tried to move on, too.

Then, Ba'al took you, and started torturing you, killing you over and over again, before reviving you so he could start anew. I couldn't stand by and watch that happening without trying to help. I still loved you, even then, and your suffering was intolerable to me.

Of course, our interactions in your cell didn't go particularly well. I don't know why I thought it would be any different. If we had grown apart, ideologically, during my last few years on Earth, my ascension had put a whole new stratosphere of experience between us. And you weren't exactly at your best, from an intellectual debating point of view, though I can't really blame you for that, given the circumstances. I couldn't explain what I was trying to do, and you refused to hear it anyway. At first, you thought I was a delusion, which didn't help, and then you just wanted me to wave a magic wand and bend the universe to my will. You never could understand the dilemma of the Ancients and their vow not to interfere.

It was killing me inside to watch you dying over and over again, knowing I had the power to stop it, but restricted by the choice I had made to take on that power. We argued, like we always do, and quickly reached an impasse. If only you could have been open, for once, to the possibility of something outside your own existence. If you had been willing to make the choice to come with me, we might have had the opportunity to share something truly profound. But, you were stuck in your stubborn insistence on seeing everything in physical terms. All I wanted was for you to open your mind, and all you wanted was for me to blow up the prison.

The first inkling I had that you might feel more for me than you let on was when you turned the tables on the situation and basically said you would reduce the universe to its component atoms to save me if our positions were reversed. I should have seen that admission for what it was, but by then I was blinded by my own stubbornness, blinkered to the idea that your ascension was the only route for your escape.

And then the moment was over and you were back to asking me to kill you again. I really wish you'd stop doing that. I gave the order once, and I wasn't about to do it again. It was that request that finally made me try to think of another way. And, of course, there was one - a way I could get around the rules about interfering without anyone realising. You thought I'd abandoned you to your fate, but really I was giving Teal'c the information he needed for the others to save you.

Back at Stargate Command, you reverted to your flippant side again, and any exchange of true feelings we might have had was lost to the intensity of the situation in Ba'al's stronghold. You did suggest I might stick around, but there didn't seem to be any real depth behind the words, and I was already back with my head in the clouds after the relief of knowing you were safe, so I didn't really listen.

XXXXX

Of course, your influence was what got me kicked back to the corporeal plane in the end, Jack.

I know you could argue it doesn't demonstrate much devotion to refuse to break one small rule to save you, and then turn around a while later and break all the rules to save Abydos. But hey, I did break that one small rule to save you, even if you didn't know it at the time. And Abydos was an entire planet - my people, my home. They welcomed me, accepted me, loved me, in all the ways I wanted from you, and all I brought them in return was pain and suffering. I owed it to them to do whatever I could to help them, even if it meant being punished by the Others.

And so, my brief sojourn as an ascended being came to an abrupt end, and with it went all my memories - of my life before, of my identity, of us. You and Sam were both hurt at my instant rejection of you when you turned up out of the blue, offering the answers to all my questions. But I was so lost and confused, and I didn't know any of you. How could I trust anything you said? And what if I didn't like what I found out?

But, even then, with no idea who I was or what might lie on the other side of the Stargate, I felt drawn to you, more than to either of the others. I asked Sam if there had ever been anything between me and her, because I was trying to identify where the pull was coming from. But it was you I wanted to be near, you I wanted to tell me all about my life and your place in it. You seemed so hurt when I kept getting your name wrong, but it was a defence mechanism, a deliberate ploy to stop me getting too close before I knew where I stood.

I couldn't resist the impulse to follow you for long, though. To you, it seemed like such a simple choice, to come home. For me, it was leaving everything I had ever known and the simple lifestyle that had become so familiar, to journey to an unknown world full of people who said they knew me, but whom I couldn't remember at all. The only thing that persuaded me was the knowledge that you would be there to guide me. You didn't let me down. I knew I had made the right decision the moment I stepped off the ramp in the Gate Room and you put your hand on my shoulder to show me the way to go. As I moved away, your hand slid down to the small of my back for just an instant, and that was the first time Earth really felt like home again.

I could have used the excuse of my memory loss to probe your feelings for me then. But you kept your distance and never gave me the opportunity. I was too scared of what the response might be to risk it, anyway. Leaping blindly into an undercover mission with Jonas on Anubis' ship seemed like child's play in comparison to broaching the subject of just how far our relationship went.

And then, it was all over; we'd defeated Anubis, my memories were back, Jonas was going home, and it looked like everything would just go back to the way it had been before. I accepted that, looked forward to it, even. After everything that had happened, I craved the familiar path, and felt no regret for whatever opportunities I might have missed. Your invitation to dinner at your place seemed like an offer for all of us to find ourselves again, as a team, and I accepted gratefully, thinking you were just being a good leader.

It felt good to walk up the driveway to your house, anticipating an evening with my friends, slotting back into the team dynamic and wiping away the trauma of separation and loss.

But when you opened the door, the stillness of the house immediately told me there was no-one else there. You gave me your usual casual greeting and ushered me inside. It was only when the door closed behind me that you let your guard down, only when the two of us were enclosed in the space you called your own, that you finally showed me what you were feeling. You turned and enfolded me in your arms, holding me close, and so tightly, as if you were afraid I might disappear again. I knew in that moment that you shared everything I had been thinking and feeling, that you wanted me just as much as I wanted you. Just like the moment on the submarine for me, it had taken losing me to make you realise it. I brought my arms up and clutched you to me, reassuring you without words that I understood and that I was there to stay.

And that, Jack, is when I knew I was truly home.

THE END


End file.
